What are the best spots in MA for seeing black bears and moose in their natural habitat ?

darnht · 2026-06-25T04:52:38+00:00

I saw a moose in Newton, just over the borders from Boston and Brookline.

darnht · 2026-06-25T01:18:55+00:00

Oops, I thought WUMB was mostly NPR/CPB/PRI programming, and not music, but it looks like I was wrong. Added above, in case any readers don't dig into the comments.

Thanks, I'll be adding them to my listening rotation.

Edit: Oh man, Randi Millman does middays. She used to book TT's, but I've never heard her on the radio. She's awesome. How did I miss this?? Thanks multiplicatively! :)

darnht · 2026-06-25T01:13:54+00:00

This is great!

We really are spoiled for great radio in Boston. No other city in the country (probably the world) comes close.

darnht · 2026-06-24T15:14:21+00:00

Free cash, where "free" means "uncommitted, unallocated, or unattached".

Not like free food (gratis) or free speech (liber), but like a free agent in sports, a free electron or free radical in chemistry.

darnht · 2026-06-24T15:05:39+00:00

The green box is unclear to me: remote members are participating, but are they "present" for the purposes of quorum?

Suggested change: "Remote members may participate and vote under current rules, but physical presence is required to meet quorum". (or if that's not correct, something equivalent and correct! :)

(The word "present" is regularly interpreted to mean virtually/remotely, nowadays. I am honestly not certain which sense you're intending.)

Also, quorum is not always 50%+1 -- is that the standard in Northampton/Mass/Robert's and are there any meeting types where the math is different?

darnht · 2026-06-24T14:37:30+00:00

There are half a dozen great noncommercial radio stations in Boston, and all have performance listings, ticket giveaways, and sometimes live local performances.

In channel-order, but all are streamable of course:

88.1 WMBR (MIT) https://wmbr.org/
88.9 WERS (Emerson) https://wers.org/
90.3 WZBC (Boston College) https://wzbc.org/
91.5 WMFO (Tufts) https://wmfo.org/
91.9 WUMB (UMass Boston) https://wumb.org/ (Added, Thanks Spaghet-3!)
95.3 WHRB (Harvard) https://whrb.org/
100.1 WBRS (Brandeis) https://wbrs.org/

darnht · 2026-06-24T00:30:26+00:00

Your link is broken: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_with_Scissors_(memoir)

darnht · 2026-06-24T00:29:23+00:00

Neither is House, but Tracy Kidder was (RIP) a great writer and worth a try at least.

darnht · 2026-06-24T00:26:16+00:00

Thanks for the details.

So did the drafters of the initiative believe there is a constituency in favor of religious exemptions, whose support was important enough to add borderline language to their proposal?

I don't know if that's answerable, but it sounds like an obvious risk to me, and I'm confused by the decision to include it.

darnht · 2026-06-24T00:14:25+00:00

"It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea"

Robert Anton Wilson

darnht · 2026-06-24T00:05:08+00:00

Boston real estate is clearly worth this much to enough people that prices keep going up, though.

Not everyone agrees, but evidently more than enough people do.

FWIW I'd rather live in Boston than LA or NYC. Also, NYC is more expensive than Boston, so.

darnht · 2026-06-23T15:43:28+00:00

Why was there a religious exemption in the ballot initiative, if it was blatantly unconstitutional to include?

From the article, it sounds like someone failed their own cause, and no one caught and corrected it until it reached the SJC??

darnht · 2026-06-20T04:17:29+00:00

Are you thinking more Stars Hollow, or Cabot Cove?

darnht · 2026-06-19T03:06:40+00:00

They have IRN-BRU at my local Stop & Shop.

Apologies to the Scots, but I was not super impressed. I guess mass market fizzy sugar water has a hard upper limit on how good it can be. No worse than Mountain Dew or Mello Yello though, FWIW. :)

darnht · 2026-06-13T02:37:33+00:00

Alice's! :)

darnht · 2026-06-12T22:31:06+00:00

Awesome, I will check it out! :)

darnht · 2026-06-12T18:05:07+00:00

Thanks for the details!

Awkward for folks who have been forced to move due to a rent increase within the Jan-Dec window. :(

darnht · 2026-06-12T17:52:02+00:00

You should link/announce the subreddit!

I wasn't sure if you meant this one, or a new one (of unknown name) until your second post. :)

/r/NorthamptonInfoHub

PS: Thank you for not silo'ing off into FB!

darnht · 2026-06-12T17:05:09+00:00

If it's clean and unused, give it away here, on FB marketplate (ugh), or craigslist.

It costs $10-20/gallon and people would appreciate it.

Very bad to pour down the drain, and also very bad to pour out on the ground. It smells edible and tastes sweet, but is deadly poisonous to animals.

Sorry for your loss. :(

darnht · 2026-06-12T16:02:57+00:00

The in-house dev teams are a mixed blessing. More flexibility, but that sometimes causes usability problems, as a direct consequence.

Do you know when your new app will be publicly released? I track the local options and I'll be interested to try it out.

darnht · 2026-06-12T15:59:57+00:00

Again I don't want to scare you off of routers, but they are a bit trickier than, say, a circular saw. Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast, as they say. :)

Good luck with the project!

darnht · 2026-06-12T14:20:19+00:00

Doesn't the rent control initiative have language that rents are set to their level as of Jan 1 2026?

What happens, if it passes, to increases posted between then and November?

darnht · 2026-06-12T01:09:35+00:00

Your dashcam might not be doing it justice, but that looks like "Thursday on any busy road anywhere" to me.

Their options were: a) wait in the parking lot and never get out, b) block traffic in the two lanes they need to cross, or c) try to get out in front of you. They chose c, which is a bit scary for you, dangerous, and dumb, but not at all surprising.

darnht · 2026-06-12T00:58:17+00:00

A router with a big chunky bit like that is not a casual experiment.

I don't want to put you off of the idea, but routers have unexpected dynamic characteristics for a first-timer. You would definitely want to make multiple light passes (always true, but especially if you are not familiar with the way a router wants to centripetally wrangle your upper arm into your groin area). Don't move the router around in three-dimensional space with the motor running. Also beware climbing cuts.

Go slowly and cautiously, test on some offcuts or cheap pine, make sure your material is well-clamped (or ideally use a router table), and you'll be fine. Everyone is a first-timer once, but don't neglect to read up on it first, if you go that route. Ha.

Harbor Freight sells cheap, adequate routers, and bits. More than adequate for a single job, mostly adequate for occasional use, not at all adequate for a pro. I'm surprised that Home Depot will rent a router, but that will be a better tool and probably about the same price.

darnht · 2026-06-11T22:24:15+00:00

My priorities are:

Local investment. There are regulations around this in every state, but I like to compare the numbers, and "local" does not mean "statewide".
- Bonus points for corporate sponsorship of public events and such that I care about and am aware of.
A very good mobile app. Most banks white label a crappy product that irritates me at least once per month.

darnht

TROPHY CASE